3rd Birthday Cakes

As I mentioned before, I held Ben's kids' party and family party on the same day. The kids' party was from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and the family one began at 4:00 p.m.


I would definitely do this again, but cross my fingers that less than perfect weather and a menu-planning snafus don't occur again. (Both of these things left me a distracted and not as able to enjoy our company as I would typically like. So apologies to everyone who saw chicken-with-her-head-cut-off-Sayonada that day.)


I really did want to keep it simple, but I also wanted to be sure it was fun. And what's more fun than cake?


I made a Lego-shaped cake for the kids' party (and I use the term Lego-shaped loosely. These pictures are actually way more flattering than it looked in real life.)

...and decided to just use Lego-shaped candles on the family one. (By the way, the kids' was a white cake and the family one was chocolate.)





Interestingly, I got tons of compliments on the cake. Both were made with Betty Crocker cake mixes and copius amounts Kroger brand frosting. There. The secret is out.

Ben's 3rd Birthday

For Ben's 3rd birthday, I went with a Lego theme and decided to host both his friends' party and our family party on the same day. Rain the night before and the morning of kept us away from the soggy park, but by the time the kiddos arrived it was a sunny and beautiful.


The craftiest part of the both parties was the Lego pull-string pinata inspired by this one at Delia Creates (also a fab resource for LOTS of Lego-themed ideas).


Because the week prior to the party Bri was in St. Louis (in fact, he arrived mid-kids' party), I tried to make party prep easy. I won't go in to all the details, but here is how I planned my week:

And here's an overview of how the pinata came together using just a diaper box, green plastic table cloth, clothesline, tape and candy.




The concept is simple: only one string actually opens up the door that spills out the candy. The others were just taped on to the bottom. The kids took turns pulling the string and one lucky kid would make the candy pour out.


(And no, I am not anti-real pinata or anything, but I didn't really think arming a group of 3 year-olds was wise. And I wasn't confident that even if armed, they would be strong enough to break an actual pinata. Plus, this was super cheap.)


Clearly, this is not perfect, but it worked. And it was recognizable as a Lego piece. (At least, that is what my kind guests told me!)


More importantly, it was a hit! As I mention in the collage above, the door to open the candy should have been cut wider, but we got it open with a little help.